Bible Chronology

Bible chronology deals with fixing the exact dates of the various events recorded. For the earliest parts of Old Testament history we rely entirely on the scripture itself; but the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint or Greek translation, and the Samaritan Pentateuch do not agree together, so that many dates cannot be fixed with certainty. From the time of David onwards we get much assistance from secular history, such as inscriptions on monuments and other state records. Much work has still to be done in this direction. The dates found at the top of many printed English Bibles are due to Archbishop Ussher (1581–1656). Some of them have been shown to be incorrect.

In the days of Abram we meet with the names of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Amraphel, king of Shinar. Egypt was manifestly a powerful kingdom before and during the patriarchal times, but the early annals of Egypt as they have come down to us help us to few synchronisms that can be relied on.

After the death of Joshua was the period of the Judges, of whom the first was Othniel and the last Samuel, but the arrangement and dates of the rest are very uncertain.

The commencement of the Assyrian empire appears to have been somewhere in the period of the Judges, but much of the chronological data preserved in Assyrian tablets is of a mythical character.

B.C.

The Undivided Kingdom

Persons and Events of External History

1095

Commencement of Saul’s reign. Samuel lives for a great part of Saul’s reign.

There is much uncertainty about the chronology of the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, and Pekah, and from2 Kgs. 15:1–2, and 30–32, it is clear that there is some confusion in the biblical numbers. Uzziah’s name is now thought to have been discovered in an Assyrian inscription 740 B.C.If that proves correct, the commencement of Isaiah’s prophecy cannot date before that year, and the time of Jotham’s regency may have been counted as regnal years. In these tables the biblical numbers have been adhered to, as far as possible, but they require further elucidation, which we may hope for as the Assyrian chronology becomes more assured.